OK, I think I discovered a workaround, which I'm going to try. No idea if it will work though, so if you're reading this and know they won't, please warn me!  ;-)

1. Select piece you wish to hide

2. Right-click: Format Cells

3. Switch Category from "General" to "Custom"

4. Type ";;;" over "General"

5. Press OK

This will hide the cells so they are no longer imported into your CAT tool.

Once you've finished translating and exported your final documents, remember to un-hide them by selecting the same cells and changing the Category "Cusom" back to "General".

This will obviously only work well if your cells are easy to identify visually, because if they are not you will have a very hard time un-hiding them all afterwards.

Michael

Hi Michael,

Did you try the "Color" option in the Excel file type?

Best,

Nora Díaz

Unknown said:

No idea if it will work though, so if you're reading this and know they won't, please warn me!

Hi Michael,

Not a workaround I've seen before but seems quite clever.  Will be interested to know if it works!

Regards

Paul

I can confirm that the  ";;;"  trick worked perfectly!

I did ask Stanislav (the developer of TransTools ) about it the other day, whether he could include it in TransTools for Excel, and this is what he said:

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Hi Stanislav,

A client just sent me 4 Excel files with certain parts highlighted yellow. Is there a quick way to hide all parts not highlighted?

I was going to just use memoQ's little trick (see screenshot), via "Import with options", but thought it might be even faster via TransTools.

Regards,

Michael

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Hi Michael,

Hmm, good question. I don't have time to check, but as far as I remember, the stuff I was asked not to translate was just a ton of exact reps anyway, so they might very well have been parsed by Studio and I didn't even notice it ;-)

I'll try to check when I have a moment!

Edited to add: I better check, as it might have affected the final word count I used to calculate my total fee for the client ;-)

Hi Michael,

I appreciate that now it might be too late for you, but, anyway, I want to share with you and other colleagues a couple of solutions I have adopted for a similar request.

As I have understood, you had a file like this one:

where yellow highlighted cells require a translation… right?

If you have a single column (not bilingual) MS Excel file

• In MS Excel first, activate the Data > Filter command (or CTRL-SHIFT-L), then click on the filter icon in the right end of the proper column (first row) and select Filter by Color > Filter by Cell Color:

• You will obrain a result like tis one:

i.e. only cells highlighted in yellow (other cells have been “hidden”).

• Save the Excel file.
• Load the Excel file in Studio, obtaining this result (with no. of words to be translated (30) in the bottom right corner as usual):

• Translate the file in Studio and generate the target final file to obtain again a XLSX file.
• Open the in Excel the translated file and deactivate the Filter function (CTRL-SHIFT-L) to obtain this:

containing translation of originally yellow highlighted cells.

If you have a two columns (bilingual) partially translated MS Excel file:

• Load the MS Excel file in Studio using the Bilingual Excel file filter confirming and locking existing translations:

• The result is this one and, as you can see, the word count of words to be translated is the same (30 less 1) of the previous one.

• When the translation has been completed you may generate again the XLSX file which appears as follows:

I hope this may help to manage MS Excel files similar to those proposed by Michael.

Claudio